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Rolling Your Own USB Devices?

Posted by Cliff on from the garage-built-peripherals dept.

greasyHacker asks: "Back in the old days when every computer under the sun had a parallel port, it was quite easy to whip up a simply parallel port device of some sort, and pretty easy to write software for it.. Now that USB is here and standard, I'd like to make use of the 'power of USB' and roll my own devices. Specifically I'd like to start with a simply interface box that allows me to control a number of simply on/off out/input channels - much like this. (Then maybe fulfilling some other ideas later).. Can anyone suggest where to get information on such a project, both the hardware and the driver side of things?"

4 of 46 comments (clear)

  1. ActiveWire USB kit, USB reference page by tburke · · Score: 5, Informative

    ActiveWire has a nice looking USB project board, and a number of add-on boards that will probably do what you want, with Linux and Windows drivers. USB Central is a good USB resource page with links to that and other USB boards.

    1. Re:ActiveWire USB kit, USB reference page by zenyu · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Active Wire is probably best for someone that doesn't have access to a parallel port, but if you just a few on/off switches the cheapest solution is a dissected usb mouse. You can just wire into one the buttons for the switch. Plus you probably have bunch of non-ergonomic mice around, they are almost as common as mousepads...

  2. Try these: by stienman · · Score: 5, Informative

    Giga Technology USB Devices

    Dontronics is reputable place to get stuff. In the end you may want to stick with a serial port to a microcontroller, and use USB serial port cables to work with them.

    Many, many products still work this way.

    -Adam

  3. the USB specifications... by invictus · · Score: 5, Informative

    can be found here for both USB v1 and v2

    --
    --Ks9